======================================================= **** Call for Participation ***** IROS2022 Interactive Service Robot Competition in Cyberspace October 24 to 25, 2022 (Hybrid: Kyoto, JAPAN / Online) https://sites.google.com/view/robocup-athome-sim/competition-at-iros2022 =======================================================

This competition evaluates how well intelligent robots can engage in natural and friendly communication with users and achieve various support behaviors in daily-life environments. The competition is designed based on the SIGVerse simulator, which enables robots to make embodied and social interactions in virtual reality (VR) environments. Competitors submit their software of service robot on AWS (Amazon Web Service). Human test subjects in the real space interact with a robot in the virtual space to evaluate the interactive support ability. One of the competition tasks is a Vision-Language Navigation task to be solved by a human. In other words, the robot needs to explain clearly to the human how to get to the destination, and the competition setting aims to connect the XAI and HRI research. Furthermore, by discussing and examining the fusion and interface between robotics and the metaverse, digital twin, and cyber-physical systems that have been attracting attention in recent years, we believe that this event will provide a valuable opportunity to explore the direction of further development in robotics research.

*** Competition website: https://iros2022.org/program/competition/#toggle-id-2 https://sites.google.com/view/robocup-athome-sim/competition-at-iros2022

*** Important dates: Aug. 10, 2022 Deadline for submission of qualification material Aug. 24, 2022 Qualification announcement Oct. 24-25,2022 Competition

*** Rulebook (tentaive): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jor8UZXW6xFtBZmMvmZmJlUWtryMW7rQ/view

*** Qualification Material Submission (mandatory): The team MUST send an email to the organizers (robocup.at.home.simulation[at]gmail.com) to participate in the qualification process for the competition. Due to the space limitation of the competition venue, the organizers will select excellent teams that have enough skill and knowledge to develop interactive service robots. The number of team members may be limited depending on the available space. Please fill in the following information and attach a Team Description Paper (TDP): - Team Name: - Country: - Affiliation: - Participation style: on-site or virtual (remote) - Number of team members: - Team Leader Name: - Contact information (E-mail): - Link to a team website: - Rank in previous competitions: - Link to a team video (optional):

Important notes: Only one team leader can be specified per team. Only one contact email can be specified per team.

*** Instructions for TDP: Team Description Paper (TDP) is a scientific paper, detailing information on the technical and scientific approach of the team’s research, while including also the following: Group’s research focus and interests. Innovative technology and scientific contribution Brief, general description of the system when solving a task Brief, compact list of the 3rd party robot’s software (e.g. include MoveIt/YOLO) Maximum length is 8 pages (including figures and citations). Please use a free format and limit yourself to 8 pages. The language for the TDP, its graphics, tables, images, and all additional content must be English. Content in other languages must be translated.

*** Selection criteria Qualification materials will be judged by the following criteria: Team description paper (clarity, scientific contributions, re-usability by the HRI community, applicability in both virtual/real worlds) Website (multimedia, publications from last 5 years, downloadable content, open-source software and other contributions) Relevant scientific contribution/publications (downloadable papers and open-source software) Novelty of approach Performance in previous related competitions (optional) Team Video (optional)

*** Registration: Participants who come to Kyoto/Japan need to register for the IROS conference. https://iros2022.org/registrationvisa/registration/ If you prefer to participate remotely, the registration fee will not be required.

This competition will be held jointly with RoboCup Japan Open 2022. The qualified teams are recommended to register for the RoboCup Japan Open. The teams that have never participated in the RoboCup Japan Open before are FREE OF CHARGE. Registration for the RoboCup Japan Open will be announced on the competition website.

*** SIGVerse - software platform for the virtual space: All the tasks in the competition will be performed based on the SIGVerse platform. Please check the details of the SIGVerse system at http://www.sigverse.org/wiki/en/. This is an open-source platform distributed at Github https://github.com/RoboCupatHomeSim including sample programs (template source codes) of each task. Tutorials and install documents are included in the above Rulebook.

With kind regards, and looking forward to see your team in IROS2022,

Organizers: Tetsunari Inamura, National Institute of Informatics, Japan Yoshiaki Mizuchi, Tamagawa University, Japan ------------------------------------------------ Tetsunari Inamura (Associate Professor) National Institute of Informatics, JAPAN The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, JAPAN TEL : +81-3-4212-2518 FAX : +81-3-4212-2035 URL : http://researchmap.jp/inamura/?lang=english Email : i*****a@nii.ac.jp